The recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, along with countless others who have lost their lives because of the fatal disparities and injustices that people of color face in America, are a heartbreaking and infuriating reminder of the long-standing impact of systemic and institutional racism that plagues our country. We, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, share in the outrage, and stand in solidarity with Black communities across our nation. We not only mourn the loss of our brothers and sisters, but demand justice. We demand justice for the individual acts of violence and bigotry that resulted in these and so many other senseless murders, and we demand justice from the systems that perpetuate white supremacy and endlessly disadvantage the Black, Latinx and low-income students and families we serve.

At the Partnership, our mission is rooted in a collective call for equity and justice in our communities, city, and country. We believe that recent events have the potential to serve as an inflection point locally and nationally, and we will work with our school communities to find a path that will amplify our collective ability to dismantle the underlying systems of oppression that once again have been laid bare. We are far from having answers, and with humility we are asking them to share their wisdom at this critical time.

We understand many of you may be grieving on a number of fronts. We will seek to create spaces for dialogue with our school communities and our partners, develop resources for our schools, and we most earnestly welcome input. But above all else, we will be thinking about how to better do our part in addressing the pernicious racism that is at the bedrock of our nation.